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We got hit with it a few weeks ago. I completely locked up all Word, excel, ACAD, and other files. (Oddly it left Access alone.) The scariest part was that we paid the ransom, and then had to completely drop our pants in order to let the criminals decrypt everything. The decryption seemed to work just fine, but for about a day, they had complete access to our servers as they decrypted them.

Yes, I had this on my computer a couple of weeks ago as well and successfully removed it since. NEVER EVER pay the ransom to these guys to remove it, get a pro or learn how to remove it yourself. Here's a thread I made couple weeks ago warning people about it.

"When a user opens such a message, CryptoLocker installs itself on the user's system, scans the hard drive, and encrypts certain file types, such as images, documents and spreadsheets."

You have to run a file to get this virus to install on your system, do you not? You have to download something...You cannot get a virus by simply opening a message, can you? Even if it is HTML? Would you have to set all your emails to open in text format only to be sure?

"When a user opens such a message, CryptoLocker installs itself on the user's system, scans the hard drive, and encrypts certain file types, such as images, documents and spreadsheets."

You have to run a file to get this virus to install on your system, do you not? You have to download something...You cannot get a virus by simply opening a message, can you? Even if it is HTML? Would you have to set all your emails to open in text format only to be sure?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what your quoting but the quote you quoted says nothing about having to run/download anything to get cryptolocker. Anyways, the answer to your question is no, you can simply get this by opening sketchy websites, like I did.

I'm not sure what your quoting but the quote you quoted says nothing about having to run/download anything to get cryptolocker. Anyways, the answer to your question is no, you can simply get this by opening sketchy websites, like I did.

Click to expand...

I don't believe that's true. Usually anything like that needs permission to write to your drive, perhaps download manually, or clicking a button giving permission for it to do so.

Yes. This, among any thousands of other reasons is why you need to make regular backups to a hard drive that you then keep offline after the backup is made. That way if some of these files get encrypted, you can clean your machine of the infection and restore files from your backup.

Online backups are good, but should be used in conjunction with offline backups, as infected files could be backed up to the internet-hosted backup service as well.

Yes. This, among any thousands of other reasons is why you need to make regular backups to a hard drive that you then keep offline after the backup is made. That way if some of these files get encrypted, you can clean your machine of the infection and restore files from your backup.

Online backups are good, but should be used in conjunction with offline backups, as infected files could be backed up to the internet-hosted backup service as well.

Yes, I had this on my computer a couple of weeks ago as well and successfully removed it since. NEVER EVER pay the ransom to these guys to remove it, get a pro or learn how to remove it yourself. Here's a thread I made couple weeks ago warning people about it.

Yes, I had this on my computer a couple of weeks ago as well and successfully removed it since. NEVER EVER pay the ransom to these guys to remove it, get a pro or learn how to remove it yourself. Here's a thread I made couple weeks ago warning people about it.

Not only do you want to follow some of the great advice already listed, but I would add to make sure your operating system and all third party applications are up to date with patches from the vendor.

Drive-by malware is also out there floating around. You don't need to click on or install anything to be infected. Your computer becomes infected just by visiting a compromised website that then injects malware onto your system via an unpatched vulnerability in your OS or another third party app. The website can be completely legitimate, but if hackers have compromised just one section of the site, you risk infection.

For this reason, I would also suggest making sure you are using a secure browser when surfing the internet. That will be your first line of defense from these attacks.